by Lynne Graham
Her hands laced tightly together. In the unrelenting silence, she believed she could hear her own heartbeat, speeding and pounding out the evidence of her own betrayal. She was horrified by the sensual imagery that had briefly driven every other thought from her mind. If her memory was playing tricks on her, her body was no less eager to follow suit.
Luc extended her glass, retaining hold of it long enough to force her to look at him. It was a power-play, a very minor one on Luc’s terms but it made her feel controlled. She took several fast swallows of her drink. It hurt her tight throat and she hated the taste, but once she had been na;auive enough to drink something she detested because she believed that was sophistication.
‘Feel better now?’ Luc enquired lazily, lounging back with his brandy in an intrinsically graceful movement. ‘Do you live in London?’
‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’m only here for the day. I live in…in Peterborough.’
‘And you’re married. That must be a source of great satisfaction to you.’
The ring on her wedding finger began to feel like a rope tightening round her vocal chords. She decided to overlook the sarcasm.
‘When did you get married?’
‘About four years ago.’ She took another slug of her drink to fortify herself for the next round of whoppers.
‘Shortly after—’
Her brain had already registered her error. ‘It was a whirlwind romance,’ she proffered in a rush.
‘It must have been,’ he drawled. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘It’s all very pedestrian,’ she muttered. ‘I’m sure you can’t really be interested.’
‘On the contrary,’ Luc contradicted softly. ‘I am fascinated. Does your husband have a name?’
‘Luc, I—’
‘So, you remember mine? An unsought compliment…’
She stared down into her glass. ‘Paul. He’s called Paul.’ Fighting the rigid tension threatening her, she managed a small laugh. ‘Honestly, you can’t want to hear all this!’
‘Indulge me,’ Luc advised. ‘Are you happy living in…where was it? Peterhaven?’
‘Yes, of course I am.’
‘You don’t look very happy.’
‘It doesn’t always show,’ she retorted in desperation.
‘Children?’ he prompted casually.
Catherine froze, icicles sliding down her spine, and she could not prevent a sudden, darting, upward glance. ‘No, not yet.’
Luc was very still. Even in the grip of her own turmoil, she noticed that. And then without warning he smiled. ‘What were you doing with Huntingdon?’
The question thrown at her out of context shook her. ‘I…I ran into him while I was shopping,’ she hesitated and, with a stroke of what seemed to her absolute brilliance, added, ‘My husband works for him.’
‘You do seem to have enjoyed a day excessively full of coincidences.’ Stunning golden eyes whipped over her flushed, heart-shaped face. ‘The unexpected is invariably the most entertaining, isn’t it?’
She set down her glass. ‘I r…really have to be going. It’s been…lovely meeting you again.’
‘I’m flattered you should think so,’ Luc murmured expressionlessly. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Afraid of?’ she echoed unsteadily. ‘I’m not afraid of anything!’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘We have nothing to talk about.’
‘I foresee a long day ahead of us,’ Luc commented.
Catherine bent her head. ‘I don’t have to answer your questions,’ she said tightly, struggling to keep a dismaying tremor out of her voice. Fight fire with fire. That was the only stance to take with Luc.
‘Think of it as a small and somewhat belated piece of civility,’ Luc advised. ‘Four and a half years ago, you vanished into thin air. Without a word, a letter or a hint of explanation. I would like that explanation now.’
Stains of pink had burnished her cheeks. ‘In a nutshell, getting involved with you was the stupidest thing I ever did,’ she condemned.
‘And telling me that may well prove to be your second.’ Dark hooded eyes rested on her. ‘You slept with me the night before you disappeared. You lay in my arms and you made love with me, knowing that you planned to leave…’
‘H-habit,’ she stammered.
Hard fingers bit into her wrist, trailing her closer without her volition. ‘Habit?’ he ground out roughly, incredulously.
Her tongue was glued to the dry roof of her mouth. Mutely she nodded, and recoiled from the raw fury and revulsion she read in his unusually expressive eyes. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she mumbled.
He dropped her wrist contemptuously. ‘My compliments, then, on an award-winning performance. Habit inspired you with extraordinary enthusiasm.’
She reddened to the roots of her hair, attacked by the sort of memories she never let out of her subconscious even on temporary parole. To remember was to hate herself. And that night she had known in her heart of hearts that she would never be with Luc again. With uncharacteristic daring, she had woken him up around dawn, charged with a passionate despair that could only find a vent in physical expression. Loving someone who did not love you was the cruellest kind of suffering.
‘I don’t remember,’ she lied weakly, loathing him so much that she hurt with the force of her suppressed emotions. He made her a stranger to herself. He had done that in the past and he was doing it now. She was not the Catherine who understood and forgave other people’s foibles at this moment. She had paid too high a price for loving Luc.
‘Habit.’ He said it again, but so softly; yet she was chilled.
Quite by accident, she registered, she had stung his ego, stirring the primitive depths of a masculinity that was rarely, if ever, challenged by her sex. She wasn’t the only woman to make a fool of herself over Luc. Women went to the most embarrassing lengths to attract his attention. They went to even greater lengths to hold him. The reflection was of cold comfort to her.
Women were leisure-time toys for Luc Santini. Easily lifted, just as easily cast aside and dismissed. On the rise to the top, Luc had never allowed himself to waste an ounce of his single-minded energy on a woman. Women had their place in his life…of course they did. He was a very highly sexed male animal. But a woman never held the foreground in his mind, never came between him and his cold, analytical intelligence.
‘I have to be going,’ she said again and yet, when she collided with that gleaming gaze, she was strangely reluctant to move.
‘As you wish.’ With disorientating cool, he watched her gather up her bag and climb out of the car on rubbery legs, teetering dangerously for an instant on the very high heels she always wore.
Dragging wayward eyes from his dark, virile features, she closed the door and crossed the street. She felt dizzy, shell-shocked. All those lies, she thought guiltily; all those lies to protect Daniel. Not that Luc could be a threat to Daniel now, but she felt safer with Luc in ignorance. Luc didn’t like complications or potential embarrassments. An illegitimate son would qualify as both.
A little dazedly, she shook her head. Apart from that one moment of danger, Luc had been so…so cool. She couldn’t say what she had expected, only somehow it hadn’t been that. In the Savoy, she could have sworn that Luc was blazingly angry. Obviously that had been her imagination. After all, why should he be angry? Four years was a long time, she reminded herself. And he hadn’t cared about her. You didn’t constantly remind someone you cared about that they were living on borrowed time. At least, not in Catherine’s opinion you didn’t.
Her mind drifted helplessly back to their first meeting. She had rewarded his mere presence at the gallery with a guided tour par excellence. She had never been that close to a male that gorgeous, that sophisticated and that exciting. Luc, bored with his own company and in no mood to entertain a woman, had consented to be entertained.
He had smiled at her and her wits had gone a-begging, making her forget what she was saying. It hadn’t meant anything
to him. He had left without even advancing his name but, before he had gone, he said, ‘You shouldn’t be up here on your own. You shouldn’t be so friendly with strangers either. A lot of men would take that as a come-on and you really wouldn’t know how to handle that.’
As he’d started down the stairs, glittering golden eyes had glided over her one last time. What had he seen? A pretty, rounded teenager as awkward and as easily read as a child in her hurt disappointment.
In those days, though, she had been a sunny optimist. If he had happened in once, he might happen in again. However, it had been two months before Luc reappeared. He had walked in late on and alone, just as he had before. Scarcely speaking, he had strolled round the new pictures with patent uninterest while she’d chattered with all the impulsive friendliness he had censured on his earlier visit. Three-quarters of the way back to the exit, he had swung round abruptly and looked back at her.
‘I’ll wait for you to close up. I feel like some company,’ he had drawled.
The longed-for invitation had been careless and last-minute, and the assumption of her acceptance one of unapologetic arrogance. Had she cared? Had she heck!
‘I’ve been shut in all day. I’d enjoy a walk,’ he had murmured when she’d pelted breathlessly back to his side.
‘I don’t mind,’ she had said. He could have suggested a winter dip in the Thames and she would have shown willing. Taking her coat from her, he had deftly assisted her into it, and she had been impressed to death by his instinctive good manners.
As first dates went, it had been…different. He had walked her off her feet and treated her to a coffee in an all-night caf;aae in Piccadilly. She hadn’t had a clue who he was and he had enjoyed that. He had told her about growing up in New York, about his family, the father, mother and sister who had died in a plane crash the previous year. In return she had opened her heart about her own background, contriving to joke as she invariably did about her unknown ancestry.
‘Maybe I’ll call you.’ He had tucked her, alone and unkissed, into a cab to go home.
He hadn’t called. Six, nearly seven agonising weeks had crawled past. Her misery had been overpowering. Only when she had abandoned all hope had Luc shown up again. Without advance warning. She had wept all over him with relief and he had kissed her to stop her crying.
He could have turned out to be a gangster after that kiss…it wouldn’t have mattered; it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to her feelings. She was in love, hopelessly, crazily in love, and somewhere in the back of her mind she had dizzily assumed that he had to be too. How romantic, she had thought, when he presented her with a single white rose. Later she had bought a flower press to conserve that perfect bloom for posterity…
What utterly repellent things memories could be! Luc didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. He had simply set about acquiring the perfect mistress with the same cool, tactical manoeuvres he employed in business. Step one, keep her off balance. Step two, convince her she can’t live without you. Step three, move in for the kill. She had been seduced with so much style and expertise that she hadn’t realised what was happening to her.
Pick an ordinary girl and run rings round her. That was what Luc had done to her. She might as well have tied herself to the tracks in front of an express train. Every card had been stacked against her from the start.
Glancing at her watch in a crowded street, she was stunned to realise how late it was. Lost in her thoughts she had wandered aimlessly through the afternoon. Without further ado, she headed for the bus-stop.
Drew’s housekeeper, Mrs Bugle, was putting on her coat to go home when Catherine let herself into the apartment. ‘I’m afraid I was too busy to leave dinner prepared for you, Mrs Parrish,’ she said stiffly.
‘Oh, that’s fine. I’m used to looking after myself.’ But Catherine was taken aback by the formerly friendly woman’s cold, disapproving stare.
‘I want you to know that Mrs Huntingdon is taking this divorce very hard,’ Mrs Bugle told her accusingly. ‘And I’ll be looking for another position if Mr Huntingdon remarries.’
The penny dropped too late for Catherine to speak up in her own defence. With that parting shot, Mrs Bugle slammed the front door in her wake. A prey to a weary mix of anger, embarrassment and frustration, Catherine reflected that the housekeeper’s attack was the finishing touch to a truly ghastly day.
So now she was a marriage-wrecker, was she? The other woman. Mrs Bugle would not be the last to make that assumption. Annette Huntingdon’s affair was a well-kept secret, known to precious few. Dear God, how could she have been so blind to Drew’s feelings?
Harriet had been very much against her brother’s desire for a divorce. She had lectured Drew rather tactlessly, making him more angry and defensive than ever at a time when he was already hurt and humiliated by his wife’s betrayal.
Had she herself been too sympathetic in an effort to balance Harriet’s well-meant insensitivity? When Drew chose to talk to her instead, had she listened rather too well? She had felt desperately sorry for him but she hadn’t really wanted to be involved in his marital problems. All she had done was listen, for goodness’ sake…and evidently Drew had read that as encouragement.
What she ought to be doing now was walking right back out of this apartment again! But how could she? After paying Mrs Anstey a month’s rent in advance, she had less than thirty pounds to her name. Peggy had raged at her frequently for not demanding some sort of a wage for looking after Harriet, whose housekeeper had retired shortly after Catherine had moved in. However, Harriet, always ready to give her last penny away to someone more needy than herself and, let’s face it, Catherine acknowledged guiltily, increasingly silly with what little money she did have, could not have afforded to pay her a salary.
And it hadn’t mattered, it really hadn’t mattered until Harriet had died. With neither accommodation nor food to worry about, Catherine had contrived to make ends meet in a variety of ways. She had registered as a child-minder, although, between Harriet’s demands and Daniel’s, that had provided only an intermittent income for occasional extras. She had grown vegetables, done sewing alterations, boarded pets…somehow they had always managed. But the uncertainties of their future now loomed over her like a giant black cloud.
As she unpacked, she faced the fact that she would have to apply to the Social Services for assistance until she got on her feet again. And when Drew returned from Germany, she decided, she would tell him about her past. If what he felt for her was the infatuation she suspected it was, he would quickly recover. Either way, she would lose a friendship she had come to value. When she fell off her pedestal with a resounding crash, Drew would feel, quite understandably, that he had been deceived.
The doorbell went at half-past six. She was tempted to ignore it, lest it be someone else eager to misinterpret her presence in the apartment. Unfortunately, whoever was pressing the bell was persistent, and her nerves wouldn’t sit through a third shrill burst.
It was Luc. For a count of ten nail-biting seconds, she believed she was hallucinating. As she fell back, her hand slid weakly from the door. ‘Luc…?’ she whispered.
‘I see you haven’t made it back to Peterborough yet. Or was it Peterhaven?’ Magnificent golden eyes clashed with startled blue. ‘You didn’t seem too sure where you lived. And you’re a lousy liar, cara. In fact, you’re so poor a liar, I marvel that you even attempted to deceive me. Yet you sat in that car and you lied and lied and lied…’
‘Did I?’ she gasped, in no state to put her brain into more agile gear.
‘Do you know why I let you go this afternoon?’ He sent the door crashing shut with one impatient thrust of his hand.
‘N-no.’
‘If you had told me one more lie in the mood I was in, I would have strangled you,’ Luc spelt out. ‘Where do you get the courage to lie to me?’
It was nowhere in evidence now. Helplessly she stared at him. He was so very tall and, in the confines of a ha
ll barely big enough to swing the proverbial cat in, he was overpowering. He had all the dark splendour of a Renaissance prince in his arrogant bearing. And he was just as lethally dangerous. As he slid a sun-bronzed hand into the pocket of his well-cut trousers, pulling the fabric taut across lean, hard thighs, she shut her eyes tight on the vibrantly sensual lure of him.
But her mouth ran dry and her stomach clenched in spite of the precaution. Had she really expected to be quite indifferent? To feel nothing whatsoever for this man she had once loved, whose child she had once borne in fearful isolation? Now she knew why she had fled his car in such a state, both defying and denying the existence of responses she had fondly believed she had outgrown with maturity.
A woman met a male of Luc Santini’s calibre only once in a lifetime if she was lucky. And forever after, whether she liked it or not, he would be the standard by which she judged other men. She was suddenly frighteningly aware that, in all the years since she had walked out of that Manhattan apartment, no other man had stirred her physically. It had been no sacrifice to ignore the sensuality which had in the past so badly betrayed her. Now she was recognising that facing Luc again had to be the ultimate challenge.
The silence went on and on and on.
‘Cristo, cara!’ The intervention was disturbingly low-pitched. ‘What is it that you think of? You look as though you’re about to fall down on your knees and pray for deliverance…’
Her lashes flew up. ‘Do I?’ It was called playing for time by playing dumb. What was he doing here? What did he want from her? Which lies had he identified as lies? Dear God, did he suspect that she had a child? How could he suspect? she asked herself. Even so, she turned white at the very thought of that threat.
Without troubling to reply, he strode past her to push open the kitchen door and glance in. In complete bewilderment, she watched him repeat the action with each of the remaining doors, executing what appeared to be an ordered search of the premises. What was he looking for? Potential witnesses? Her mythical husband? Or a child? Her flesh grew clammy with fear. In the economic market, Luc was famed for his uncanny omniscience. He noticed what other people didn’t notice. He could interpret what was hidden. If he had ever taken the time to focus that powerful intelligence on her disappearance, he would have grasped within minutes that there was a strong possibility that she was pregnant.
